[Shadow] Ancestry - Hyfaerrin

The fungal hyfaerrin are among the oldest inhabitants of Azira, having lived in the detritisphere eons before their introduction to surface dwellers. Their name, given by surface dwellers, refers to them as the children of Hyfaell, the newly ascended goddess of earth. Unlike creatures of flesh and blood, the hyfaerrin’s unique biology makes them keenly aware of the natural cycles of life and death, and rebirth. Their approach to life is comparatively slow, yet no less exciting.

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DESIGN COMMENTARY

Since choosing the Aziran setting, where the whole planet would be permanently altered by how the sun just works, I knew I had to work on some unique ancestries. These are by no means a unique idea (bats and mushrooms underground? who knew?), so I primarily worked on their implementation.

For the hyfaerrin, the spiritual descendants of Hyfaell, goddess of earth, I wanted to keep them as nonmagical as I could. There were a number of characteristics that would have been fun to implement here, so the primary challenge was simplifying and unifying it. Ideas like being ageless and speaking with plants didn't make the cut; ideas like throwing spores were shifted to the Sporeheart Gardener feat instead. I wanted to keep them more physical and biological rather than the popular psionic route; I would have written Sporeheart Magic as a nonmagical trait if it wasn't more complex.

Overall, the hyfaerrin is on the higher end of average compared to existing ancestries. The poison resistance and spells count for a lot, so we can compare most of the hyfaerrin to dwarves. Trading out some of the dwarves'  bonus proficiencies for basic cantrips and a 1/day spell, plus the very minor temporary hit points (~4 THP at 5th-level) and you get the hyfaerrin. Note that the temporary hit points only works when absorbing a corpse of similar size, so unlikely to be useful while in a city. Even for min-maxers, carrying a Small/Medium corpse around for a set of THP per day would be a weird way to play. The hyfaerrin spell selection is intentionally designed to be one minor utility and one damage/targeted spell to avoid a powerful combination.

The hyfaerrin are centered around the Sporeheart Macromesh, a huge organic mycelium network. I was intentionally vague with their descriptions because fungi are so varied it'd be impossible to describe them all, but one detail I liked was that their language, instead of being spoken or carried via mind spores, is a wonderful color display. The way I wrote it, Hyfaerrin is communicated silently (as long as the recipient is within range) and in light (darkvision only allows you to see shades of gray). It's near impossible for other creatures to produce without a system of colored cloth. Keep in mind that spells with a verbal component still need them and would be spoken in Common!